Traveling to a land far, far away…

I am reading the series “The Land of Stories” by Chris Colfer. I am really enjoying this series. It is fun and exciting and it is also an easy read. I chose to read this series because I always loved fairy tales when I was younger, who am I kidding, I still love them, and I thought that this would be a fun series for me to read. This is a great series that a wide range of ages could read. I think any ages between 8-12 years old would enjoy this series. The reading is easy so someone young could still read it, while it is  longer book, each are around 450 pages, this could prove a difficulty for the younger kids to read. This book is filled with excitement and it adds a twist to our original fairy tales which prove to be popular in a wide range of ages.  

The two central characters in this story are Alex and Conner. They are twins in sixth grade who are going through a hard time at home. While they look alike, they are very different. Alex is very focused in school and Conner tends to fall asleep in class just about everyday. After receiving a treasured fairy tale book from their grandmother for their twelfth birthday, they soon realize that there is something even more special about this book than they thought. they were able to transport into “The Land of Stories” and be apart of their most treasured fairy tales, the good parts and the scary parts included. Now their mission is to find out just how they are going to get back home to their mom.

I think that this would be a great book to read to the class while we are doing a fairy tale lesson. It gives the kids a new look on the fairy tales that they all know so well, and lets them really feel like they are in their favorite fairy tales.  Since this is a much longer book, it would be hard to read the whole book in class while keeping everyone’s attention, so like Miller talks about in “Reading in the Wild” this book is one that you could read a few chapters out of and then put it on the bookshelf and let the students who want to continue it do so.

I think reading aloud is a great tool to use in your classroom. Highlighting what Miller talks about, it is a great way to introduce your students to some different genres of books that they might not pick on their own and it proves to your students that reading is, in fact, FUN! A few downfalls to reading aloud is that it is hard to chose a book that everyone will enjoy and stay attentive during. So, taking into consideration some of the different ways that Miller uses to pick out read aloud books, I believe it is a great activity to do in your classroom.